When you submit a concern, we store: • The title and description you write, exactly as typed, in any language • Your campus, study level and course (to route your concern and for anonymous statistics) • Your visibility choice (public or private) and any urgency reason • Files or voice notes you choose to attach • A timestamp, a reference number and a one-way hash of your access code We do not ask for your name, student number, email or phone number. You do not need an account.

Submitting without an account does not make you impossible to identify. The details in your text, a photo, your voice in a recording, or the circumstances of the concern can reveal who you are to people who know the situation. Our servers also receive network information (such as IP addresses) like any website; the audit log stores only a keyed hash of it. Before you submit, remove names, faces and ID numbers you do not want reviewers to see.

Your reference number identifies your concern. Your access code proves it is yours. The code is shown once, on the confirmation screen, and stored only as a one-way hash. Nobody — including the Guild and system administrators — can read it, resend it or recover it. With both, you can follow progress from any device, read private replies, add information, and say whether the response addressed your concern. Repeated wrong codes cause a temporary wait.

If you choose “Public”, the feed shows the title and description, campus, categories, status, official public responses, approved public evidence, and support counts. Never public: your study level, course, attachments, voice notes, private replies, internal staff notes and your access code. Moderators may edit the public text (the original is kept) or hide it if it exposes personal information. Anyone can report a public post that contains personal information.

Private concerns are visible only to: • You, using your reference number and access code • Guild triage reviewers (Guild President and Guild Administrators) • The specific person a concern is assigned to • University management, only for concerns referred to them • Welfare / safeguarding officers (private and sensitive concerns) System administrators manage accounts and settings and cannot open private complaints. Concerns in sensitive categories (such as harassment or discrimination) are always handled privately, whatever visibility you choose. Every view and action by staff is recorded in an audit log.

Complaints, responses and audit records are kept so that commitments can be checked later. Nothing is deleted automatically at the moment. The Guild and the university still have to agree a retention period (for example, how long resolved concerns and attachments are kept before deletion or anonymisation); this notice will be updated when they do.

To add a correction, use “Add more information” on your tracking page. To report personal information in a public post, use the report link on that post. For other privacy concerns, contact the Guild Cabinet and quote your reference number — never your access code.